Medieval art studies in the Republic of Letters · PDF fileMedieval art studies in the Republic of Letters: ... own heritage of medieval documents ... fellow-traveller Michel Germain

Journal of Art Historiography Number 7 December 2012

Medieval art studies in the Republic of Letters:

Mabillon and Montfaucon’s Italian connections

between travel and learned collaborations1

Francesco Russo

Figure 1 J. Mabillon, Iter Italicum, (Paris, 1687), title-page.

Introduction

Between 1685 and 1701 the Italian establishment was shaken by visits to the

Peninsula of two leading figures in medieval studies: Jean Mabillon and Bernard de

Montfaucon. Although Italian scholars were not new to the principles of historical

research established by their French colleagues, the voyages littéraires made by the

two famous Benedictines of the Congregation of St. Maur2 set in motion a process of

actions and reactions that effected a substantial improvement in the study of pre-

1 I would sincerely like to thank the editor for giving me the opportunity to publish this article. I would express my gratitude to the referees who read the paper and offered essential suggestions and mainly to Mark Weir (University of Naples L'Orientale) for his invaluable help in proofreading the text. 2 Mabillon in 1685-1686; Montfaucon in 1698-1701.

Russo Medieval Art studies in the Republic of Letters

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Renaissance art and antiquities in Italy.3 (figs 1&2) This process took place in the

context of the more advanced exploration of the Middle Ages which, with its

methodological rigour, marked the transition of historiography between

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.4

Figure 2 B. de Montfaucon, Diarium italicum, (Paris, 1702), title-page.

Making reference to studies of the post-classical heritage, this article

illustrates the Maurists’ Italian experience by focussing on Mabillon’s journey,

3 Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘Mabillon's Italian disciples’ [1958], in Idem, Terzo contributo alla storia degli studi

classici e del mondo antico, to. I, Roma 1966, 135-152; Blandine Barret-Kriegel, Jean Mabillon, Paris 1988,

67-75; Françoise Waquet, Le modèle français et l’Italie savante (1660 - 1750), Paris-Rome 1989, 36-38, 103-

105; Gabriele Bickendorf, ‘Dans l’ombre de Winckelmann : l’histoire de l’art dans la ‘république

internationale des Lettres’ au XVIIe siècle’, Revue de l’Art, 146: 2004, 7-20; Francesco Russo, 'Itinera

literaria et antiquités du Moyen Âge. L'Italie de Jean Mabillon et Bernard de Montfaucon', dans Voyages

et conscience patrimoniale. Aubin-Louis Millin 1759-1818 entre France et Italie, actes du colloque

international INP, BnF, Université La Sapienza (Paris-Rome, dec. 2008), Rome 2012, 33-46. 4 For an overview on early-modern Medieval studies with art-historical implications, see Enrico

Castelnuovo and Giuseppe Sergi, eds, Arti e storia nel Medioevo, IV, Il Medioevo al passato e al presente,

Torino, 2004; for the antiquarian aspect see, above all, Alain Schnapp, La conquête du passé: aux origines

de l'archéologie (Paris, 1993) [English edition: The Discovery of the Past, New York, 1997] and Alain

Schnapp and Kristian Kristiansen, 'Discovering the Past', in Graeme Barker, ed, Companion Encyclopedia

of Archaeology, I, (London-New York, 1999), 3-47.


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which has so far attracted less art-historical attention than that of Montfaucon.5

Rather than considering the full scope of his art-historical observations on medieval

art, for which we refer to other studies, we focus mainly on his collaborations with

local scholars who were actively involved in inspecting and gathering information

about monuments from the Middle Ages. Secondly, our purpose is to place

Mabillon and Montfaucon's antiquarian investigations in Italy in the context of

contemporary publications, correspondence and learned friendships, noting traces

of mutual influences between the French and Italian traditions of scholarship.

Mabillon in Italy: collective inspections and tours

Mabillon's Italian journey (1684-1685) had a significant impact on both the Republic

of Letters and his own life. With a continued sense of discovery he entered new

realms of charters and manuscripts, finding and publishing crucial patristic,

Benedictine and liturgical writings according to the new philological criteria that

Mabillon had recently established in his De re diplomatica (Paris, 1681).6 From

Piedmont to Campania he established an itinerary based on libraries and archives

that would become a model for future scholar-travellers.7 At the same time he was

constantly interacting with prominent figures of local erudition, and this proved the

real turning-point in his career and the driving force for his increasing interest in art

history.

Mabillon's voyage in Italy was more penetrating and enduring than

Montfaucon’s following stay (1698-1701). The latter, in terms of its importance,

followed a geographical and scholarly trail already traced by his predecessor and, in

terms of interaction with scholars, was clearly less open to collaboration, although

sparkling with meetings and collective surveys. Montfaucon focused mostly on his

own ambitions; by contrast, Mabillon frequently relied on his learned friends’ guide

and cooperation. Mabillon's austere temperament, earnestly devoted to the

principles of the early-modern Benedictine Reform that inspired the birth and

doings of the St. Maur congregation, did not stop him from opening out his

historical/philological research to the help of other scholars, if this would benefit his

erudite aims. 8 The eldest Maurist was preoccupied by a thirst for historical and

5 See Elena Vaiani, ‘L’Antiquité expliquée di Bernard de Montfaucon: metodi e strumenti dell'antiquaria

settecentesca’, in Dell'antiquaria e dei suoi metodi, in Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe

di Lettere e Filosofia: Quaderni, 6 (1998), 155-176. 6 See above. 7 This sense of discovery was also accompanied by the perception of a substantial decadence of the

current Italian historical science, which was viewed by the Maurists as largely unable to enhance its

own heritage of medieval documents (Franco Venturi, ‘L’Italia fuori d’Italia’, in Storia d’Italia, III, Dal

primo Settecento all’Unità, Torino, 1973, 985-990). 8 Daniel-Odon Hurel, ‘Dom Jean Mabillon, moine bénédictin et acteur de la république des lettres dans

l’Europe de Louis XIV’, in Dom Mabillon. Œuvres choisies, Daniel-Odon Hurel, ed, Paris, 2007, ii-vi.


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religious truth, which he constantly pursued through work in libraries and archives,

and secondarily through the visits to monuments.

In comparison with the rest of his travels, Mabillon’s Italian experience was

undoubtedly the longest and the most demanding and variegated. Prior to 1684 his

research activity had mainly been carried out in the seclusion of monastic libraries,

albeit in Flanders, France, Switzerland and Germany, where he had copied charters

for historico-philological purposes. We have little evidence that he had any real

interest in the works of art and monuments he encountered along the way. The

accounts of his journeys in Bourgogne (1682) and Germany (1683) contain only

passing references to copying gravestones and seals.9 During the preparation of De

re Diplomatica (Paris, 1681), empirical observation of the material features of

documents and the comparison of forms and styles of ancient writings, made in

itinere as he visited a number of French abbeys (mainly in Paris and Lorraine),

undoubtedly paved the way for his interest in art history.10 But this interest really

took hold in Italy, and gained a lot from meetings and carrying out inspections with

Italian scholars, in his mission to purchase and copy medieval manuscripts for the

Maurists’ library in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and for the library of Louis XIV.11 His

almost exclusive attention to the Middle Ages, seen in his pursuit of documents,

also concerned works of art and buildings. In fact the contents of his travel diary

(the Iter Italicum) show the Classical past to have been very much a marginal

interest.

Mabillon’s studies in Italy were conducted in full adherence to a rationalist

attitude based on a connection between critique and logic12 that he will theorize in

his Traité des études monastique (Paris, 1691). It was an approach that was fully shared

with the scholars he met along the way. In Brescia, in May 1685, Mabillon and his

fellow-traveller Michel Germain were taken through the town’s monuments by

Giulio Antonio Averoldo, connoisseur and expert numismatist, who in 1700 was to

9 Jean Mabillon, Itinerarium Burgundicum, in Vincent Thuillier, ed, Ouvrages posthumes de Dom Jean

Mabillon et de Dom Thierri Ruinard, Paris, 1724, II; Jean Mabillon, Iter Germanicum, in Veterum

Analectorum, IV, Paris, 1685. 10 Gabriele Bickendorf, ‘Des mauristes à l’école de Berlin: vers une conception scientifique de l’histoire

de l’art’, in Edouard Pommier, ed, Histoire de l’histoire de l’art, Cycles de conférences organisés au

Musée du Louvre (24 janvier-7 mars 1994, 23 janvier-6 mars 1995), Paris, 1997, II, 141-175 and

Bickendorf, 'Dans l'ombre de Winckelmann', p. 8. For an overview of Mabillon’s learned travels in

France, Flanders and Germany see Henri Leclercq’s biography of Mabillon reedited in Daniel-Odon

Hurel, ed, Dom Mabillon. Le moine et l’historien, Paris, 2007, 37-51, 73-98, 246-259. 11 On the official aims of Mabillon’s Italian mission see Henri Omont, ‘Mabillon et la Bibliothèque du

Roi à la fin du XVIIe siècle’, in Mélanges et documents publiés à l’occasion du 2e centenaire de la mort de

Mabillon, Ligugé-Paris, 1908, 105-112. 12 ‘It is necessary to criticise in order to advance in science’(‘Il faut critiquer pour avancer dans les

sciences’) : Jean Mabillon, Traité des études monastiques, Paris, 1691, 295.


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edit the baroque-flavoured Le scelte pitture di Brescia additate al forestiere.13 Averoldo

guided the French monks in the company of Fortunato Vinacesio, merchant and

polyglot bibliophile, and Ermete Lontana, librarian of Brescia’s bishop, on their visit

to the cathedral and Count Martinengo’s cabinet of curiosities and paintings.14 On

passing through Vicenza in the company of another count, Carlo Emilio Gonzaga,

the French travellers were shown the remains of the Roman Theatre and the

Duomo, where they were captivated by its late-Gothic design and ‘elegantissimum’

choir assorted with Palladio’s renovations.15 Inspections of private collections were

usually a consequence of the exploration of libraries (in these cases private libraries),

which were the basic aim of Mabillon’s journey. Moreover, they testify to direct

contact with the collections’ owners. In Verona, for instance, the travellers were

guided by Francesco Moscardo through his family museum, where Mabillon was

attracted by a sixth-century Byzantine stoup from Santi Marco e Andrea in Murano,

duly described and reproduced in a full-page engraving in the Iter Italicum (Paris,

1687) (fig. 3).16

Figure 3 Copy from a sixth-century Byzantine stoup of Francesco Moscardo's Museum, engraving.

From J. Mabillon, Iter Italicum (Paris, 1687).

13 Julius von Schlosser, Die Kunstliteratur, Wien, 1924 [Italian edition, La letteratura artistica, Milan,

1999], 551. 14 Jean Mabillon, Iter Italicum, Paris, 1687, 22. 15 Mabillon, Iter, 25. 16 ‘Inter res sacras, unum est vas ex marmore albo, quod vetus baptisterium esse putant ad usum

græcorum, alii vas aquæ lustralis. Figuræ est orbicularis in angustius collum desinens, quam ut pro

baptizandis usui esse potuerit et in summa etiam minus quam par esset. Habet altitudinis ternos

pedes, unicum pedem et pollices novem. Inscriptio græca, quæ usum ejus sacrum fuisse indicat,

huiusmodi est: A . Id est: Haurite

aquam cum gaudio, quia vox Domini super aquas’ (Mabillon, Iter, 24). For Moscardo’s Museum see Irene

Favaretto, Arte antica e cultura antiquaria nelle collezioni venete al tempo della Serenissima, Rome, 20022, 174-

177, where there is also mention of the seventeenth-century travellers’ interest in this such collections.


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The most intense visits were undoubtedly those in Rome. During two long

stays in the city (summer 1685; winter-spring 1686) the encounter with Giovan

Pietro Bellori, at that time court antiquarian and librarian at the Christine of

Sweden’s residence, must surely have been of great significance. Bellori guided

Mabillon through Christine’s library and museum at Palazzo Riario alla Lungara

during his first Roman stay, when he could appreciate the well-known collection of

medals, paintings and sculptures.17 Their meetings became more informal and

intimate after Mabillon’s return to Rome, when the antiquarian joined him and

Germain at the Maurist congregation’s residence and for some itinerant surveys.

Bellori also opened up his own collection, providing Mabillon with copies of the

inscriptions from unpublished copper tablets coming from the Roman province of

Hispania.18 These encounters, denoting a friendship that led to later correspondence,

undoubtedly reflected Bellori’s Francophilia and alliance with the French party in

Rome.19 It is plausible that they played a role in alerting Mabillon, who was familiar

with Bellori’s Le pitture del Sepolcro dei Nasoni (Rome, 1680) engraved by Pietro Santi

Bartoli’s, to the whole sphere of antique objects and art-works and their early-

modern reproductions (fig. 4). In this regard we can recall the visit that Mabillon

and Germain made to Bartoli’s residence in the company of Bellori and Monsieur de

la Thuillière, the director of the Académie de France in Rome, where they appear to

have appreciated the water-coloured copies of the wall-paintings from the Nasoni

mausoleum, presumably the ones commanded by the cardinal Camillo Massimo for

his project of the Gran Libro delle antiche pitture, and the original engravings

published in 1680.20 Mabillon’s mention of Bartoli’s collection of fragments of

Roman frescoes, due to be engraved, is also interesting.21

17 See Tomaso Montanari, ‘Bellori and Christina of Sweden’, in Janis Bell and Thomas Willette, eds, Art

History in the Age of Bellori. Scholarship and Cultural Politics in Seventeenth-Century Rome, Cambridge:

Cambridge University press, 2002, 94-126 (p. 107). Mabillon’s first visit to Christine’s collections is

documented in a letter of Michel Germain dated 13 August 1685 (Paris, BnF, ms. 17679), where there is

also the description of an allegorical portrait of Louis XIV in marble. 18 ‘Bellorius, a nobis laudatus non semel, ut nos in Galliam reversuros perpetui apud se hospiti jure

donaret, exemplum nobis concessit duplicis egregiæ tesseræ hospitalitatis ex ænea tabula, quam ex

Hispania, id est ex bibliotheca Laurentii Ramirez de Prado, Matrito Romam allatam per Camillum

Maximum patriarcham jerosolymitanum, Bellorius ipse in suo museo nunc asservat. Prima tessera

spectat universas familias Desoncorum et Tridavorum ex opido Zoëlarum; altera, privatas personas’:

Mabillon, Iter, 154-155. See also Emmanuel de Broglie, Mabillon et la Société de l’Abbaye de Saint-Germain-

des-Prés, Paris, 1888, II, 45. 19 For this aspect see Anna Pallucchini, ‘Per una situazione storica di Giovan Pietro Bellori’, Storia

dell’Arte, 12: 1971, 285-295. 20 ‘Petrum de Sanctis [Pietro Santi Bartoli, nda], arte pingendi et cælandi insignem, adivimus cum

domino Thuillerio, Academiæ Regiæ præfecto, ubi quicquid veterum picturarum in antiquis delubris

et monumentis reperiri potuit pictum aut cælatum vidimus: quale est Ovidi mausoleum, æri ab eodem

Petro incisum in variis tabulis notisque et observationibus illustratum a Petro Bellorio, quicum tunc

eramus’: Mabillon, Iter, p. 58. For Bartoli’s polychrome drawings after Nasoni’s mausoleum, that are


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Figure 4 G. P. Bellori, Le pitture del Sepolcro dei Nasoni (Rome, 1680), title-page.

Mabillon’s main cicerones in Rome, however, were Giovanni Giustino

Ciampini and Raffaello Fabretti, two scholars of great importance for their constant

pioneering archaeological searches in the Roman countryside and suburban areas,

and for their antiquarian publications.22 At least ten intensive searches are

documented in Mabillon's Iter Italicum and some manuscripts of the Bibliothèque

nationale de France,23 involving visits to antique and medieval monuments. Many

were one-day tours devoted entirely to churches, catacombs, aqueducts and Roman

sites, but interestingly without taking in any libraries, although the diary shows that

these were visited on an almost daily basis. Showing perhaps for the first time a full

preserved at the Glasgow University Library, see G. Fusconi, ‘Un taccuino di disegni di Raymond

Lafage e il palazzo delle Quattro Fontane di Roma’, in Marco Buonocore, ed, Camillo Massimo

collezionista di antichità. Fonti e materiali, Rome, 1996, 61, and Massimo Pomponi, ‘Schedatura dei disegni

del taccuino’, in Camillo Massimo collezionista, 73 and ff.; and so Gaetano Messineo, La Tomba dei Nasoni,

Rome, 2000, 14-15. 21 ‘Idem Petrus veterum picturarum reliquias ex romanis monumentis undequaque collegit, paratus ad

eas æri incidendas, si quis laboranti opem ferat, quod a Regis magnificentia sperare jubetur’: Mabillon,

Iter, 58. 22 For Ciampini’s biography see Silvia Grassi Fiorentino, ‘Ciampini, Giovanni Giustino’, in Dizionario

Biografico degli Italiani, 25: Rome, 1981, 136-143; for a profile of Fabretti see Mario Luni, Raffaello Fabretti

‘archeologo’ urbinate e ‘principe della romana Antichità’, Urbino, 2001. 23 Mabillon, Iter, 65, 87. I am currently working on these manuscripts.


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Figure 5 From the lost eleventh-century mosaic cycle with the Life of the Pelagius II, Rome, San Lorenzo fuori le

Mura, engraving. From G. C. Ciampini, Vetera monimenta, tome II, (Rome, 1699), pl. XXVIII.

interest in art-historical and archaeological practices, our French traveller allowed

himself to be led out of his habitual archival pursuits by Ciampini and Fabretti,

occasionally joined by Emmanuel Schelstrate and Lorenzo Zaccagni, respectively

the librarian and the custodian of the Vatican Library. A visit to San Lorenzo fuori le

Mura on 10th August 1685 was particularly full of discoveries. The group lingered

over the mosaics of the triumphal arch, especially the seventh-century portrait of

Pelagius II, on the eleventh-century mosaic cycle with the Life of the eponymous

saint in the atrium (now lost); and on various architectural details.24 It is easy to

imagine how Ciampini would have given his eminent guests the benefit of his deep

knowledge of mosaics, knowledge which shortly afterwards was to find expression

in his masterpiece Vetera Monimenta (Rome 1690, 1699), where the mosaic of the San

Lorenzo triumphal arch was reproduced25 (fig. 5). The learned group explored the

Catacombs of Pontianus, where, as testified both by the travel report and in a letter

24 ‘Ad arcum, qui fornicem apsis claudit et cingit, apparet Pelagii papæ II effigies ex musivo, qui

basilicam post Constantinum instauravit auxitque. Portam majorem Honorius III construxit, cujus

ibidem ex musivo effigies ante atrium cernitur. In ipso atrio depicta est Vita sancti Laurentii, atque

adeo baptismus sancti Romani per ipsum: qui a dextra Romanum nudum, utpote qui aquis immersus

erat, benedicit; sinistra urceum aqua plenum super ejusdem caput effundit. Urceus iste ex ære etiam

nunc ibidem in sacrario ostenditur. Ergo quia caput in aquam mergi non poterat, superfusio aquæ

adhibebatur, immersio ad reliquum corpus, ut nulla pars hominis expers esset sacri lavacri’: Mabillon,

Iter, 181. 25 Giovanni Giustino Ciampini, Vetera monimenta, Rome, 1699, pl. XXVIII.


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written by Michel Germain, Mabillon was struck by the ‘picturæ antiquissimæ’ of

martyrs and an image of Christ’s Baptism, all representations which were discussed

in loco.26 He was also directly involved in archaeological activity which led to the

discovery of a fragment of an Egyptian carved idol, several Christian inscriptions

and coins, while in the cemetery of Castulo, which Fabretti himself had found,

Mabillon collected a number of glass cruets for the martyrs’ blood.27

One of the most interesting episodes of this learned friendship took place at

Ciampini’s home, where on 7 July 1685 the French monk was able to consult the

manuscript of the Vetera Monimenta, an extremely important treatise entirely

dedicated to the medieval era, with a rich graphical apparatus featuring mosaics,

bas-reliefs, architecture, liturgical furnishings and gold artefacts, that was nearing

completion in the summer of that year (fig. 6). Mabillon consulted the manuscript

‘cum magna voluptate’, taking a lively interest in this kind of repertorium based on

the central function of the visual documentation, in which he evidently found a

great affinity with his historical methodology established on cataloguing and the

objective study of data.28

Figure 6 G. C. Ciampini, Vetera Monimenta, tome I (Rome 1690), title-page.

26 Mabillon, Iter, 136. So Michel Germain wrote in a letter to Claude Bretagne dated 22 January 1686:

‘Avant-hier nous fûmes au cimetière de Pontianis au-delà de la Porte Portese. C’est le plus sain de tous

les cimetières. Il est fort ample. Il y reste peu de corps saints dans ce qui en est découvert; mais on y

voit de très anciennes peintures de baptême de Notre Seigneur, etc., avec une église souterraine, qui

inspire le même respect qui animait les premiers fidèles qui y célébraient dans cette crypte les divins

mystère’: Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 17679, f. 185. 27 Mabillon, Iter, 135-137. 28 Bickendorf, ‘Dans l’ombre de Winckelmann', 8-9.


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In January 1686, thanks to Ciampini and Fabretti and following the

recommendations of Melchisedec Thèvenot before starting on his journey, Mabillon

met Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, who gave him the rare opportunity to examine the

Musæum Chartaceum of his elder brother Cassiano.29 The archaeological section of

this illustrious collection of drawings and engravings, now for the most part in the

Royal Library in Windsor Castle, filled Mabillon with wonder. He was particularly

impressed by the watercolours reproducing the miniatures of the Virgil and the

Terence codices of the Vatican Library in their entirety (‘elegantissimis picturis

expressi’).30 Mabillon was so astonished by this collection of images that he

published in his Iter the copperplates from the drawings of two early-Christian

sarcophagi from Tortona belonging to the Settala collection in Milan (fig. 7), and the

apse mosaic of San-Teodoro-al-Palatino in Rome.31

Figure 5 Early-Christian sarcophagus from Tortona, Settala collection in Milan, engraving from Cassiano dal Pozzo

Musaeum Chartaceum, engraving. From J. Mabillon, Iter italicum (Paris, 1687).

29 Mabillon, Iter, 143. In several letters sent by Thèvenot to Mabillon, before the latter’s arrival in Rome,

the French scholar suggested Mabillon should visit dal Pozzo’s residence ; in May 1685 he wrote: ‘Ce

monsieur del Pozzo est un homme d’un grand mérite et un de mes plus anciens amis, et son cabinet

vous fournira longtemps de quoy vous entretenir; son cabinet orneroit bien celuy du Roi à cause des

peintures, ainsi dessins’: Thèvenot to Mabillon, in Émile Gigas, Lettres des Bénédictins de la Congrégation

de St-Maur. 1652-1700, Copenaghen, 1892, 92. For Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo see Ingo Herklotz, Cassiano

Dal Pozzo und die Archäologie des 17. Jahrhunderts, München, 1999, 101-118. 30 Mabillon, Iter, 143. On these drawings see José Ruysschaert, ‘Les dossiers Dal Pozzo et Massimo des

illustrations virgiliennes antiques de 1632 à 1782’, in Francesco Solinas, ed, Cassiano Dal Pozzo (Atti del

Seminario Internazionale di Studi, Napoli 1987), Rome, 1989, 177-186. 31 Mabillon, Iter, 223, 230-231.


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A similar welcome was offered to Mabillon and his companion Germain, in

Naples, where Giuseppe Valletta monopolized the Maurists’ stay. Thanks to

Valletta, with whom he pursued an epistolary friendship, Mabillon found himself

gratified by the attentions of the most exclusive Neapolitan intellectual milieu,

especially in his library/symposium, enabling him to discover libraries, collections

and archaeological sites.32 He explored the Catacombs of San Gennaro, visited that

autumn by Gilbert Burnet, who also benefited from Valletta’s hospitality.33 As their

guide to the meanders and decorations of the Catacombs Mabillon and Germain

had the canon Carlo Celano, a leading light of local antiquities and habitué of

Valletta’s circle.34 They made a greater impression than the Roman subterranean

cemeteries, and the two men even claimed that they had introduced a taste for such

sites to Naples, as attested in a letter dated 6th November from Germain to Placide

Porcheron:

A good canon of the Cathedral [Carlo Celano], who works on the History of

Naples, guided us through the Catacombs, which are, undoubtedly, much

more beautiful than those in Rome. They are very spacious too and, which is

a pleasant sign of the flabby laziness of the Neapolitans, almost none of the

well-educated men of this town had ever heard of these catacombs. We will

make people want to visit them, to show that we take on a responsibility in

such discovery. In Naples there is also an amphitheater, a circus, arenas, etc.,

which tell us that Naples had all the marks of Roman greatness.35

The references in Iter Italicum to the catacombs deserve to be better known,

alongside the contemporary and more extensive description given by Burnet, who

shared the French monks’ opinion on the supposed inadequacy of previous studies

32 Mabillon, Iter., 104-119. 33 On the visit of Burnet to Naples see Fausto Nicolini, Aspetti della vita italo-spagnuola nel Cinque e

Seicento, Naples, 1934, 246-250. 34 Mabillon, Iter, 114-115. 35 ‘ Un bon chanoine de la Cathédrale [Carlo Celano], qui fait l’histoire de Naples, nous a menés dans

les catacombes, qui sont sans aucune difficulté beaucoup plus belles que celles de Rome. Elles sont

aussi très spacieuses et, ce qui est une plaisante marque de la molle paresse des napolitains, presque

aucun même des habiles de cette ville n’avait jamais entendu parler de ces catacombes. Nous en ferons

venir le goût aux gens, qui témoignent nous avoir obligation de cette découverte. Il y a aussi un

amphithéâtre, un cirque, des arènes, etc., qui nous apprennent que Naples avait toutes les marques de

la grandeur romaine ‘ : Michel Germain to Placide Porcheron, Copenhagen, Royal Library, Bøll. Brevs.

U. 344 (Gigas, Lettres, 128). In fact the attention of Neapolitan scholars to the Catacombs of San

Gennaro dates back to the late sixteenth century; see Francesco Russo, La fortuna dei primitivi nella

letteratura erudita campana. Napoli e Capua tra la fine del Cinquecento e la metà del Seicento, Doctoral thesis,

University of Naples ‘Federico II’, Naples, 2007, 122-157. On the early modern rediscovery of

Neapolitan catacombs an article is currently in preparation.


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on the Neapolitan early-Christian cemeteries.36 In any case Valletta, and the peculiar

antiquarian interests of his learned circle, must have played their part in alerting his

foreign guests to these sites, calling for better investigation.

Naples’ medieval monuments remained at the centre of Mabillon’s stay,

apparently more than the ancient remains (with the remarkable exception of an

extensive journey in the Phlegrean Fields). With regard to the inspections of other

medieval monuments, the Iter records his visits with Valletta to the Angevin

churches, observed and recalled with obvious Gallic interest. Thus we have the rare

mention of the fourteenth-century paintings of stories from the life of Saint Louis of

Toulouse (now lost, but seen by Mabillon), in the primitive Angevin sacrarium in the

Cathedral of Naples, built by Charles II of Anjou, although in this case the French

scholar got some of his facts wrong.37 Moreover, shortly before their departure from

Campania, Mabillon and Germain were accompanied by Valletta and his son

Didaco on an inspection of the Norman monastery of San Lorenzo in Aversa and,

above all, the castle at Casaluce, where the group lingered over the Byzantine icon

of the Virgin and two first-century AD hydriae.38

Finally, it is important to recall the survey made with two of Mabillon’s

closest friends, Benedetto Bacchini and Erasmo Gattola. The former, Ludovico

Antonio Muratori’s mentor, accompanied the Frenchman through the region of

Emilia with his abbot’s carriage, visiting towns and studying together the imperial

charters from the ninth and tenth centuries and their seals at San Sisto abbey in

Piacenza.39 In late November 1685 Gattola, who was soon to become a particularly

close collaborator of the Maurists, welcomed Mabillon to the Abbey of Monte

Cassino, the cradle of the Benedictine order, taking care of his French guest for some

ten days, during which time he showed him not only the archives but all the

surviving artistic memories of the abbey’s glorious past and above all the

illuminated treasures in the abbey’s library.40

36 Gilbert Burnet, Some letters, containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy

&c., Rotterdam, 1686, 201-211. 37 Mabillon, Iter, 106. On this occasion there was a clear misunderstanding about the chapel’s

dedication, indicated by Mabillon as entitled to Saint Louis King of France instead of Saint Louis of

Toulouse; due to the mistaken attribution of the building of the cathedral to Charles I of Anjou, brother

of king Louis, rather than Charles II, father of Saint Louis of Toulouse: for this double tradition within

the medieval and early-modern historiography see Francesco Russo, La fondazione del Duomo di Napoli

attraverso le fonti (dal XIII al XVII secolo), Tesi di Laurea, Università di Napoli Federico II, Naples, 2003;

for the Chapel of St. Louis of Toulouse of the Cathedral of Naples see Vinni Lucherini, 'La Cappella di

San Ludovico nella Cattedrale di Napoli, le sepolture dei sovrani angioini, le due statue dei re e gli

errori della tradizione storiografica moderna', in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 70, 2007 (1), 1-22. 38 Mabillon, Iter, 119. 39 Mabillon, Iter., 209. 40 Mabillon, Iter., 120-127.


13

Learned interest in medieval art as seen in the correspondence between

Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Italy

The network of correspondence that criss-crossed early modern Europe,

complementing the practice of learned travel, made a concrete contribution to the

progress of studies of local medieval heritage. Thanks not least to their epistolary

relationships, the Maurists received substantial help from their Italian colleagues in

completing their scholarly missions on behalf of the Congregation and, at the same

time, of the French Crown. Furthermore, Italian referents supported Mabillon and

Montfaucon’s itineraries in several ways: by providing indispensable letters of

recommendation to gain access to archives; guiding them through library treasures;

illustrating the artistic beauties and rarities of cities and abbeys; and also sending

historical and graphical documents to the Maurist headquarters in Paris after the

return of the monk-travellers. We can see the outlines of a system of historical and

philological research which, in renewing fifteenth-century humanist modalities, was

grounded in travel and international collaboration between scholars.

Relations between Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Italy are a case study for the

circulation of art-historical data between Italy and France, involving above all

bibliographical news, general information on monuments and also graphic

documents. The interchange of bibliographical news involved, for instance, the

publication of Ciampini’s first volume of the Vetera monimenta in 1690, which was

announced as 'de antiquis musivis imaginibus' to Mabillon in the April of that year

by the poet Ludovico Sergardi, at the time secretary to Alexander VIII:

Only Ciampini (who is one of our correspondents) goes ahead with getting

into print a completely worthy work. Recently he published a book on the

images from ancient mosaics, which is full of erudition and many

proficiently drawn illustrations.41

In his reply Mabillon expressed true excitement with, once again, a heartfelt

recollection of his days spent in Rome with his friends:

I am glad that the illustrious Ciampini published his work on the mosaics,

which cannot be more fruitful than this for the republic of letters. No one, for

worthiness and honour, can testify that better than me, who was accustomed

to the same author's kindliness, while I was in Rome, as also illustrious

41 ‘ Solus fere Ciampinus (quem optime nostri) typis mandare aliquid luce dignum prosequitur.

Novissime publici juris fecit opus de antiquis musivis imaginibus multa eruditione refertum variisque

iconibus affabre delineatis curiosum ‘: Ludovico Sergardi to Mabillon, April 1690, in Ludovico

Sergardi, Orationes, dissertationes, prolusiones, epistolœ, Lucca, 1783, 309.


14

Fabretti's, whose memory is guarded inside my mind.42

Mabillon’s letters, in particular to Gattola, are fascinating because they

provide us with information on the progress of his Musæum Italicum and his Annales

ordinis sancti Benedicti, while his interlocutor wrote to both Mabillon and

Montfaucon concerning the slow progress of his history of the abbey of Monte

Cassino, finally published in a richly illustrated edition in 1733.43 With regard to the

exchange of graphical documentation, we can mention the lost copy of a portrait of

Ambrogio Traversari, taken from unidentified mid-fifteenth century wall-paintings,

possibly at the Camaldoli hermitage or Santa Maria degli Angeli, that Antonio

Magliabechi attached to one of his early letters to Mabillon dated 5 July 1681, 44

responding to a request at once monastic and humanistic, in the true spirit of the

Benedictine Reform:

Here enclosed, I send you the portrait of Prior General Ambrose, great for

sanctity of life, his doctrine, dignity of offices, his graciousness. It must be

included inside the Hodœporicon which I will send you without hesitation. It

certainly bears a very good likeness, for being obtained from three

paintings made from nature in Ambrose's day. 45

Montfaucon was certainly more eager than Mabillon to receive art-historical

and antiquarian material. He could count on a more extensive and ever increasing

network of European correspondents, and what is more, he nurtured more

42 ‘ Gaudeo quod illustrissimus Ciampinus opus suum De musivis publici juris fecerit, quod reipublicæ

litterrariæ non potest non esse magnopere fructuosum. Nemo est, qui dignitatem et honorem pluris

faciat, quam ego, qui continua ipsius benevolentia usus sum, dum Romæ versarer, uti et illustrissimi

Fabretti, cujus memoria semper animo meo observatur ‘: Mabillon to Sergardi, April 1690, Sergardi,

Orationes, 320. 43 See Antoine Claude Pasquin Valery, Correspondance inédite de Mabillon et Montfaucon avec l’Italie, Paris,

1846, II, 386 and ff.; III, 110-111; Giuseppe Sola, ‘Dai Carteggi Maurini’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico

italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano, 51: 1936, 175-177. 44 Ambrogio Traversari, a monk and classicist, specialist in the Fathers of the Church, was responsible

for the fifteenth-century Camaldolese reform, so that Mabillon’s request for information from Italy

about him and his works clearly reflects the same monastic tradition: Charles L. Stinger, Humanism and

the Church Fathers. Ambrogio Traversari (1386-1439) and Christian Antiquity in the Italian Renaissance, New

York, 1977. 45 ‘ Qui incluso le mando il ritratto del generale Ambrosio, grande per santità di vita, per dottrina, per

dignità di cariche, per cortesia. Va inserito nell’Hodœporicon che le invierò sensa indugio. È certo

somigliantissimo essendo cavato da tre pitture fatte al naturale nel medesimo tempo d’Ambrosio ‘ :

Magliabechi to Mabillon, 15 July 1681, in Pasquin Valery, Correspondance inédite, I, 19. On Ambrogio

Traversari’s early portraits see Cécile Caby, ‘Culte monastique et fortune humaniste: Ambrogio

Traversari, vir illuster de l’ordre camaldule’, Mélanges de l’Ecole Français de Rome. Moyen-Age, 108: 1996,

n. 1, 339-354.


15

ambitious publishing projects, even though they did not always come to fruition.

We can recall that he was responsible for creating a cabinet of antiquities in Saint-

Germain-des-Prés, featuring objects from his travels or sent to him by scholars, and

this experience must have enhanced attention to the objects’ aesthetic and material

aspects that was evidently lacking in Mabillon. As confirmed by the inventory of the

cabinet preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, together with his

L'Antiquité expliquée en figure (1719-1724) and a number of letters, his interests

actually lay more with antiquity; nevertheless his collections and interests were not

restricted to the classical domain: his passing remarks on the medieval heritage of

Italy and the research for his Monumens de la monarchie française are there to prove

it.46

Montfaucon received antiquarian material from Italy that was not only from

the classical era. A note in his diary dated September 1698 mentions that he received

from Colombano Bosio the draft of a bas-relief with the Christ monogram sculpted

on a capital in Sant’Agnese in Ravenna.47 From Gattola he received some late-

antique coins of the gens Æmilia together with a letter.48 Furthermore, in a letter from

Montfaucon to Antonio Magliabechi in 1700, 49 he informed his friend about the

illustrations, taken from Vatican manuscripts, for his forthcoming St. Athanasius re-

edition; and in 1703 he announced the appearance of Felibien’s Histoire de l’abbaye de

Saint-Denis, taking the opportunity to describe the ancient church’s furnishings and

Treasure.50

We can also mention the requests that Mabillon and Montfaucon sent to

Benedictine scholars and the rest of the learned world for material for their last great

publishing enterprises, respectively the Annales of the Benedictine Order (1703-1707)

and the Monumens de la monarchie françoise (1725).51 These requests conformed to a

custom among the Maurists established since the early days of the Congregation. In

Italy Gattola was the most active in replying to his French friends, sending to Paris

not only copies of medieval records from Southern Italian archives (Naples,

Montecassino, Gaeta), with reproductions of the original characters with Lombard

46 See Rostand, ‘La documentation iconographique’, 109-123 and Russo, 'Itinera literaria et antiquités du

Moyen Âge. 47 Bernard de Montfaucon, Diarium Italicum, Paris, 1702, p. 97. 48 Pasquin Valery, Correspondance inédite, III, 108-109. 49 Pasquin Valery, Correspondance inédite, III, 85-86. 50 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Magl. VIII, 371, cc. 17, 21-22. See Paola Barocchi, ‘Il bibliotecario

Antonio Magliabechi, Leopoldo de’ Medici, Bellori e Montfaucon’, in Francesco Caglioti, Miriam Fileti

Mazza, Umberto Parrini, eds, Ad Alessandro Conti (1946-1994), Quaderni del seminario di Storia della

Critica d’Arte, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 6: 1996, 215-217. 51 To date only prospect sent by Montfaucon to the scholars about the Monumens (Paris, BnF, ms. 11915)

has been partially studied, André Rostand, ‘La documentation iconographique des Monumens de la

Monarche françoise de Bernard de Montfaucon’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français, 1: 1932,

104-109).


16

and Norman seals, but also graphical documents pertaining to medieval artworks.

He sent Mabillon two prospects of the abbey at Monte Cassino realized after 1693 by

the Neapolitan architect Arcangelo Guglielmelli, taking advantage of the latter’s

presence in the Abbey for restoration work.52 These drawings were published in

Volume II of Mabillon’s Annales (Paris, 1704). In one the architect highlighted the

medieval parts of the abbey, i.e. the body of the Desiderian church and the main

cloister, which could still be readily distinguished from the modern components,

and in the other he gave the whole veduta of Monte Cassino entailing the ruins of the

castle of San Germano (figs 8 & 9). A passage in Gattola’s manuscript diary is

illuminating:

I ordered an engraving of the prospect of this monastery. I got this drawing

done at my expense together with the prospect of the mountain, the village

of San Germano and the antiquities which are in the city of Cassino [...], and

in addition the plan of the same monastery; and I sent it to the father don

Giovanni Mabillon, who ordered the engraving to insert inside the second

tome of his Annali Benedettini.53

Moreover, Gattola kept his correspondent informed about the repairs and

modernization of the Order’s cradle being carried out by Guglielmelli54. He also had

copies made from illuminated books in the abbey, including two wonderful water-

coloured copies of eleventh-century exemplars of St-Benedict’s Rule (codd. Casin. 73

and 442), that we have recently found at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.55

52 Guglielmelli worked in Montecassino from 1693 to 1720: Giosi Amirante, Architettura napoletana tra

Seicento e Settecento. L’opera di Arcangelo Guglielmelli, Naples, 1990, 217 and ff. 53 ‘ Ho fatto intagliare il prospetto di questo monastero. Questo disegno lo feci fare a mie spese assieme

al prospetto della montagna della città di San Germano, e dell’antichità che sono nella città di Casino

[...], e di più la pianta di detto monasterio, e lo mandai donare al quondam padre don Giovanni

Mabillon, dal quale fu fatto intagliare e posto nel secondo suo tomo degli Annali Benedettini ‘ : Monte

Cassino, Archive, Giornali del Gattola, 1712, f. 6v. The text written in 1712 refers to the early period of

Guglielmelli’s presence in Monte Cassino 54 Sola, ‘Dai Carteggi’, 176-177. 55 See Russo, 'Itinera literaria et antiquités du Moyen Âge'. About the interest of Mabillon on Medieval

miniatures, concerning in particular his analysis of Charles the Bald's portrait inside the Bible of San

Paolo Fuori le Mura, which was made with his usual comparative method, see Bickendorf, ‘Des

mauristes à l’école de Berlin', p. 154 and Bickendorf, 'Dans l'ombre de Winckelmann', 8.


17

Figure 6 A. Guglielmelli, Abbey of Montecassino, bird's eye view, engraving. From J. Mabillon, Annales ordinis sancti

Benedicti, tome II (Paris, 1704).

Figure 7 A. Guglielmelli, veduta of Montecassino, engraving. From J. Mabillon, Annales ordinis sancti Benedicti, tome

II (Paris, 1704).


18

Some observations on influences and collaborations between Maurists and

Italian scholars concerning medieval antiquities

Diplomatic and palaeography are the auxiliary sciences of history which were the

subjects respectively of Mabillon’s De re Diplomatica libri sex (Paris, 1681) and

Montfaucon’s Paleographia graeca (Paris, 1708). Both disciplines, as heirs of fifteenth-

century philology, soon became the main instruments in an analytical approach to

the study of the Middle Ages, based on the verification of the authenticity of

sources. Unlike humanistic methods, an empirical component tended to

predominate in the Maurists' research, as is shown by the comparative analysis of

letter forms in the charters. In fact the missions to monastic archives and libraries

throughout Europe became essential for this new historiographical horizon. Erudite

travels resulted in enquiries into Medieval art and antiquities, which started to be

investigated with the same attitude used for the study of official records and

manuscripts, albeit more sporadically.

In Italy, where the study of the Medieval past and monuments was still

largely conditioned by the kind of Counter-Reformation purposes and methods that

characterise Baronio's Annales ecclesiastici, which since the end of 16th century,

through a militant use of the sources, imposed a global reconstruction of the Middle

Ages as a controversial instrument to Protestant historiography, there was a real

need for a systematic, critical and rigorous exploration of Italian post-Classical

history. This is why Maurist research methodology proved so fruitful, helped by the

sense of belonging to one trans-national scholarly community, the 'Republic of

Letters', supported by a deep admiration for current French scholarship.56 Mabillon

and Montfaucon’s surveys of the Italian heritage, which featured unexplored

libraries, private collections and medieval places of worship (mainly related to the

Benedictine order) involved contacts with high-profile personalities who showed a

great affinity with Maurist methodology and who treasured these experiences in

their own subsequent activities. At the same time, these surveys throughout Italy

led to a rigorous contextualisation of Italian art historiography, reinforced by the

distribution of the French monks’ travel diaries and their key publications (i.e.

Mabillon's Iter and Museum Italicum and Annales ordinis sancti Benedicti;

Montfaucon's Diarium Italicum, Palaeographia graeca and L'Antiquité expliquée). In

these works engravings and artistic information performed a noteworthy function,

albeit in a supporting role to the history associated with diplomatic and

palaeography. The itinerary established by the contribution of Mabillon and

Montfaucon's Italian expeditions and the Maurist publishing ventures would

56 Waquet, Le modèle français et l'Italie savante, 105 and ff.


19

shortly come to full maturity in the seminal works by Ludovico Antonio Muratori

and Scipione Maffei on written and archaeological sources.57

The early reception of Maurist erudition in Italy and its influence on local

studies of medieval monuments was not homogenous and widespread. It is evident

that most of the Italian scholars who met the French travellers and received Maurist

teaching tended to be critical of curial positions and the still strong scholasticist

tradition and Baronius' model, although they were generally clerics themselves and,

as such, respectful of the historical significance of the Annales ecclesiastici. From a

cultural standpoint they were independent intellectuals, only exceptionally

protected by patrons such as Christine of Sweden or Cosimo III de’ Medici. In any

case these personalities were keen to be involved in the ferments of scholarly

Europe, despite the hindrance of the Inquisition, and were more than willing to

pursue correspondence with leading European scholars and keep abreast of current

publications. This kind of sensibility towards European erudition also applied to the

renewed universe of art-historical and archaeological research, endowed with a new

taxonomy and analytical approach, although still governed by the Aristotelian

system of knowledge. Thus anti-scholasticism, anti-Jesuitism and anti-Baroque

attitudes, in addition to the rationalist application of rules and experience in

historical studies, and particularly in religious history, were basic requisites in the

Italian fascination for Maurist teaching and, therefore, the sources for the

rediscovery of their own heritage.

Everyone who was involved in the ideology of the Benedictine Reform,

which reunited all the above-mentioned critical elements, can thus be numbered

among the closest adepts of Maurist erudition.58 The Cassinese congregation was

undoubtedly in great concord with its counterpart of St. Maur, and it is hardly

surprising that it derived from the reform of a previous Order, that of Santa

Giustina in 1408. Both Bacchini and Gattola were among the first and most active

interpreters of Mabillon’s epistemology.

Bacchini’s crucial role in Italian medieval studies has seldom been analyzed

with regard to his antiquarian interests, derived from the Maurist method. In fact

his Giornale de’ Letterati, in the wake of the Journal des Sçavans,59 frequently finds

57 For Muratori and early studies on Middle Ages in Italy see Ezio Raimondi, I lumi dell'erudizione saggi

sul Settecento italiano, Milano, 1989, in particular, for the relationship between the Maurists and

Muratori, see, in the same volume, I padri Maurini e l'opera del Muratori (3-78). As regards art-historical

studies by the Maurists, concerning medieval artworks of Italy and their Italian journeys, see

Bickendorf, ‘Des mauristes à l’école de Berlin', 152-154; and Russo, 'Itinera literaria et antiquités du

Moyen Âge'. 58 Francesco G. Trolese, ‘Influenza e diffusione del ‘modello maurino’ nella congregazione cassinese’, in

Daniel-Odon Hurel, ed, Érudition et commerce épistolaire. Jean Mabillon et la tradition monastique, Paris,

2003, 115-131. 59 Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘Benedetto Bacchini’, in Terzo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo

antico, I, Rome, 1966, 123-125.


20

room for archaeological dissertations, denoting an ill-concealed fascination for

French erudition and, above all, the adoption of the Maurist method, which

Bacchini constantly promoted alongside that of the Bollandists. One of the most

Figure 8 B. Bacchini, Liber pontificalis Agnelli Ravennatis (Modena, 1708), title-page.

significant, and little known, examples of Bacchini’s interest in medieval art can be

seen in the treatise on Massimiano’s chair in Ravenna, in the Liber pontificalis Agnelli

Ravennatis (Modena, 1708), a text discovered by Bacchini himself in the mid-1690s

(fig. 10). The scholar illustrated the text with four detailed copperplates of the

chair,60 in a close parallel to typical Maurist procedure: the discovery of a liturgical

text and its philological emendation followed by an iconographic comment. To

emulate his Parisian friends, in 1696-97 he undertook a trip, funded by Gattola,

through the monastic libraries of the Peninsula, which is documented in a

manuscript diary written in a Mabillonian style and rich in accounts of visits, such

as the examination of the fifteenth-century Popes’ portraits in the Cathedral of

Siena, or his visit to Naples, where he transcribed many epigraphs.61

As we have seen, the researches of the Cassinese Gattola had considerable

importance for the achievement of Mabillon’s Annales and Montfaucon’s pursuits.

Visits by the Maurists to Montecassino always received his full attention and care.

60 Benedetto Bacchini, Liber pontificalis Agnelli Ravennatis, Modena, 1708, between 138-139. 61 Paolo Golinelli, Benedetto Bacchini. L’uomo, lo storico, il maestro (1651-1721), Florence, 2003.


21

Gattola introduced his guests to the Abbey’s treasures, with special focus on the

wonders of the medieval scriptorium. Modern knowledge of Monte Cassino’s

miniatures owes much not only to the visits of Mabillon and Montfaucon, but above

all to their collaboration with Gattola, thanks to his unconcealed pride in the artistic

heritage of the Benedictine cradle. He complied with the French monks’ needs by

searching out not only medieval records but also illuminated manuscripts to submit

to their judgement. Even after the Maurists’ return to Paris, Gattola kept busy

copying and sending them drafts of miniatures preserved in his abbey. Thanks to

the direct influence of Mabillon and Montfaucon he increased the use of illustration

as complementary evidence to historical dissertations in his Historia Abbatiae

Casinensis, edited in Venice in 1733 (fig. 11). In transposing the Mabillonian principle

from the faithful reproduction of official medieval writings to copying of art objects,

Gattola produced fine engravings of the medieval relics in Montecassino, such as

the bronze doors or the lost marble pavement of the main church, both

commissioned by the Abbot Desiderius. He involved the architect Guglielmelli in

elaborating the prospects, and himself made drafts and drawings to be engraved.

Figure 9 E. Gattola, Historia Abbatiae Casinensis (Venice, 1733), title-page.

Another scholar influenced by the Maurist travel practice was the Cassinese

Angelo Maria Querini, who made surveys of the whereabouts of manuscripts in


22

Italy, Germany, Holland, England and France, where he spent a training period in

Saint-Germain-des-Prés under Montfaucon’s supervision. After this experience he

conceived an unfinished project of a history of the Cassinese congregation following

the Maurist model and Montfaucon’s suggestions.62 Finally, Anselmo Banduri, who

went to live in the Maurist’ Abbey until his death in order to collaborate with his

friend and mentor Montfaucon on expanding Byzantine studies, made an important

contribution to the knowledge of Byzantine art with an excellent edition of Paul the

Silentiary’s Descriptio Sanctæ Sophiæ.63

Among the secular erudites we can recall Carlo Cesare Malvasia, author of

the Felsina pittrice (Bologna, 1678). Obliged to reside within the borders of the State

of the Church, in Bologna, he was able to meet Mabillon on the latter’s passage

through the city.64 The broad and problematic passage from the scheme of art

biography to that of art history is exemplified by Malvasia in his Pitture di Bologna

published in 1686, where the author's meticulous quest for original documents and

visual reconnaissance of paintings in Bologna all clearly owe much to the Maurist

methodology.65

Finally, Ciampini applied the rule of ’oculari experimento’ to the study of

medieval images and architectures. This method of description and interpretation is

meticulously documented in his Monimenta, scrupulously determining the age of

paintings and furnishing engravings ‘sub oculos lectori’ so as to demonstrate the

Catholic ‘truth’ of the facts. These were all expressions of a clear Mabillonian

matrix.66

Conclusion

The phenomenon of Maurist influence can be seen as episodic but incisive. During

the pre-Enlightenment era, Italy, thanks to its strong tradition, was not merely the

recipient for European erudition, for all its current weakness.67 Mabillon and

Montfaucon both travelled through Italy for long enough to strengthen their already

innovative historical methodologies, to gain new perspectives and research

incentives (in addition to bringing back to France the well-known stock of

manuscripts, documents and impressions of the monuments). Their meetings with

62 Ugo Baroncelli, ‘Il cardinale Angelo Maria Querini a due secoli della morte’, in Commentari

dell'Ateneo di Brescia, (1954), 19-33. 63 Jelena Puŝkarić, Anselmo Banduri (1675-1743) de Raguse à Saint-Germain-des-Prés et au-delà, Paris, 2005. 64 Mabillon, Iter, 202. 65 See Giovanna Perini, ‘Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Florentine Letters: Insight into Conflicting Trends in

Seventeenth Century Italian Art Historiography’, The Art Bulletin, 70, 2: 1988, 282. 66 Giovanni Giustino Ciampini, Vetera monimenta, Rome, 1690, I, Praefatio. 67 Venturi, ‘L’Italia fuori d’Italia’, 985-990.


23

influential scholars, in some cases developing into true and enduring friendships,

were essential and the cause of mutual enrichment.

Mabillon’s sympathies for the rational approach together with the religious

erudition displayed by his secular colleagues, Ciampini and Fabretti, had an

important result in initiating the austere Benedictine into the realm of archaeology.

Their attention to the technical side of archaeology, often studied from an

engineering standpoint, and their empirical approach to the study of iconography

were elements that combined well with the taxonomical science of Mabillon. From

this and from the catacombs exploration with his Roman friends, for example, the

Benedictine gained inspiration for the important Dissertation sur le culte des saints

inconnus (Paris, 1698). On the other hand, with Montfaucon the centrality of

illustration in art-historical treatises kept its best definition before the

Enlightenment, but it is necessary to reassert the evident Italian roots, going back to

early-seventeenth century Roman publications (i.e. Torrigio, Costaguti, Alemannni,

de Angelis, Bosio), which he acquired particularly during his Italian journey and

thanks to his learned acquaintances. Otherwise, Italy had a more ancient and solid

tradition of illustrated historiography and copies from works of art, so it is highly

likely that Mabillon and Montfaucon felt the effects of this. Both came to Italy with a

dense knowledge of this kind of literary production. We can remember how

Mabillon’s fascination in consulting Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Musæum Chartaceum,

while the meeting with Fabretti and Bellori, two key-figures of the new generation

of the illustrated historiography, had a further impulse in pushing the Maurists in

that direction.

The whole issue of influences and collaborations between France and Italy at the

eve of the Enlightenment that we have sketched here emerges as an osmotic process

that, following its delineation by Françoise Waquet,68 merits further investigation in

terms of art historiography.

Francesco Russo was born in Naples, Italy, in 1978. In 1996 he got a Classical

Lycaeum Diploma and in 2003 he graduated in Liberal Arts (Lettere Moderne) at the

University of Naples ‘Federico II’ with a thesis in History of Art Criticism on The

Angevin Foundation of the Cathedral of Naples: an Historiographical Matter, centuries 12th

- 17th. In 2003 he obtained a Doctoral Fellowship and in 2007 he accomplished his

PhD at the University of Naples Federico II in the area of History of Art Criticism

with a thesis on Medieval Art and Antiquities in early modern Neapolitan scholarship

(1580 - 1650) under the supervision of the Professors Francesco Aceto, Rosanna De

Gennaro and Francesco Caglioti. In 2007 he won the postdoctoral San Paolo

Fellowship at the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (INHA) of Paris for a project

on Mabillon and Montfaucon's studies on the Italian Medieval heritage. In 2009 he

68 Waquet, Le modèle français et l’Italie savante.


24

achieved the Specialization School in History of Art at the University of Naples 2. At

present, he is a qualified teacher of History of Art at the Italian Lycaeum.

[email protected]

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Medieval art studies in the Republic of Letters · PDF fileMedieval art studies in the Republic of Letters: ... own heritage of medieval documents ... fellow-traveller Michel Germain